Teaos wrote:I do find it funny that people claim to like ENT but not TNG, when ENT is just TNG recycled.
The biggest difference being more likeable characters on TNG:
Data is far more interesting than T'Pol, who pretty much stands around and looks either like a manniquen or insufferably arrogant. She is also incredibly skinny and unattractive, especially in the Moe Howard wig they made her wear. We saw in TOS that not all Vulcans have that hair style so why make her wear it in a prequel?
Data, on the other hand, was masterfully played by Brent Spiner and was able to fill the Spock position without being a Spock clone.
Picard and Riker over Archer. Picard was a true diplomat and Stewart was great in his role (especially in episodes like Darmok and Starship Mine), and Frakes was also a lot of fun. Episodes like Frame of Mind showed how good an actor he could be. Bakula might be a good actor, but the writers certainly did not give him much to work with.
Worf over Reed. Badass over candyass any day.
Geordi over Trip. I just found the former to be more likeable than the latter, and the latter was usually Enterprise's butt monkey for most of the show. If anything bad was going to happen to someone, it was Trip.
Tough call between Deanna and Hoshi. Hoshi is prettier, but Deanna actually got to do more, which amazes me. Troi got more lines, Troi got to go on more away missions. There were also nice Troi/Riker dynamics:
Riker (to Picard): Did I ever mention how creative the Risian women are?
Troi: Repeatedly.
Sirtis had comedic timing.
Crusher over Phlox. Why introduce an alien race we had never seen before? Why not make Phlox Andorian or some other familiar species? And why have an alien doctor on a ship comprised of 99% humans?
I liked Crusher, partly because she was a working mom and it was an interesting dynamic on the show. Wesley got the shaft, big time, and in retrospect when I watch TNG if Wheaton is given decent material he delivers.
And that brings me to the other thing TNG had; writers. This was not the same Brannon Braga, this was him at the top of his game. By Enterprise the man was just tired and rehashing his material. You had Michael Piller, Ronald D. Moore, Jeri Taylor and a literal host of others, just look at Graham's TNG reviews to see just how many writers TNG had at their disposal. What was important was the amount of talent with editorial oversight, so you had lots of great ideas from a variety of sources. Berman was doing his job at this point, administrating and making sure things stayed consistent.
By Enterprise's time you had primarily Berman and Braga writing the show, and it shows that the two are just bankrupt for ideas.
Then you had the fact that Enterprise was a prequel that did not feel like a prequel. Humans were just going where the Vulcans had already been, you already had Klingons, the technology did not seem all that different (i.e. "stealth technology"), etc. TNG really felt like a leap forward from TOS with more effective replicators, Klingons were allies, the Enterprise was immense and incredibly comfortable, holodecks, etc. TNG captured what it set out to do, while Enterprise was an epic failure.
